Hydrogen production by catalytic steam-hydrocarbon reforming is an energy intensive process. To improve the energy efficiency of the process, reformate formed in the catalytic steam-hydrocarbon reformer is passed through a series of heat exchangers to recover heat. The reformate can be used to heat a variety of streams, for example, boiler feed water, hydrocarbon feedstock, air to the reformer furnace, and fuel to the reformer furnace.
Since the global pinch in the heat exchange network of a catalytic steam-hydrocarbon reforming process is the dew point of the reformate, using heat exchangers in series causes a constraint on efficiently recovering heat from the reformate and may increase equipment cost due to the required size of the heat exchangers.
Industry desires to produce hydrogen with improved energy efficiency.